Playing Word Detective- Haters

The terms 'hater' or 'haters' once seemed like silly things that Laura Conrad and Heidi Montag would say on the MTV series "The Hills," but it is literally coming up all over the place, even in respectable media outlets, as of late.

The images here are of two fellow Turkish-Americans: the bald guy with the glasses is the Rev. Ergun Caner, who is four years older than me, and the other is of Cenk Uygur, a progressive talk show host who was also born in March of 1970 as I was. We will get to why you chose them for this piece, but I will say to those of you from Eskisehir, Turkey, who have never read this blog before that I definitely favor Uygur's view of the world more.

First, lets look at two instances when the term hater came up in two unexpected places this week. The first was when Fox News commentator Juan Williams, formerly of NPR, whose views of the world make him seem like Christopher Hitchens, David Brooks and Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Ct.), all of whom seem to be contrarians, gave an interview with media journalist Howard Kurtz in "Newsweek."

Williams is presumably a conservative (or perhaps a centrist), but he has reportedly criticized fellow Fox News personality Sean Hannity as being too extreme. During his interview with Kurtz, Williams identified those who felt his views should be more liberal because he is African-American as 'haters.'

This week, I also read an article/opinion piece by another contrarian Martin Peretz of "The New Republic," who identifies himself as a liberal but his staunch Zionism make his views come across as a conservative. As much as I admire Peretz and the magazine he once owned (which is the "TNR"), this article which clearly had elements of Arab-bashing made me realize why Eric Alterman of the very liberal magazine "The Nation" accused Peretz of being a racist, though I would not go that far.

Peretz used the term haters for Moslems who don't like Israel in the article, which was also very critical of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, and he went on to say that the Arab Spring will not likely bring about that many long-term major changes in places like Egypt or Syria. This sentiment, which I can in some ways sympathize with, does however sound like an argument made those on the far-left that there are no real differences between Obama and George W. Bush. Uh-huh.

And, haters is also used in religious circles as well. The Rev. Steven Furtick, a mega-church minister in Charlotte, NC, who seems to taking over the Queen City the way Godzilla took over Tokyo, has used the term haters to describe those who are criticizing him for merchandizing religion. But, with 7,000 worshippers on four, soon to be six, mega-church campuses, the assesment, even from an objective standpoint, seems fairly valid.

This brings us to the Rev. Ergun Caner, a former Liberty University dean, who has allegedly used the term hater for those disagree with him. Ironically, this includes Moslems who did not appreciate his Islam-bashing book that came out a year after September 11th, and Christians, who felt there were inconsistencies in his conversion story. Of course, it assuredly also includes us human secularists, though it is nice to see Christians and Moslems agree on something.

And, the term hater was used against Cenk Uygur by conservative blogger Jeff Dunetz who said that Uygur and others who differ with Glenn Beck were actually anti-semites. Apparently, this is the notion that if you differ with the Israeli government you are no different than a Neo-Nazi. Uh-huh. Again.

All of this leads to wonder where the term hater or haters started. I checked the Urban Dictionary, even though last week, I had a quasi nightmare that they were going to sue me for mentioning the terms they define on my blog. But, they did not provide me a clear cut answer, and neither did Google. Though I can verify there was a hit song in 2004 by teen icon Hilary Duff called "Haters."

It should be pointed that Cenk Uygur and I have one more thing in common in that we both went from right to left politically though my 'conversion' happened when I was 13 years old and basically sick of Ronald Reagan, who might ironically be considered a liberal now if the Republican continues to go to the whacko far right. (So much for Mary Eberstadt's theory that people go from left to right politically more often as was the thesis of her book "Why I Turned Right").

Uygur's chance of heart occured later in life when he realized George W. Bush was making a huge mistake by going into Iraq in 2003. But, I assume, since he was a Republican at the time, that Uygur didn't get any flack from Turkish relatives for voting for Michael Dukakis in 1988. That was not the case with me!

Motto of the Day- Just Do Nothing

It is perhaps slightly deviant of us to drag Kandula, the beloved nine-year-old Indian elephant at the National Zoo in Washington, DC, into politics, but..... (for those of our dear readers in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, the elpehant is the unofficial symbol of the Republican Party).

So, this is the first in what we hope we will be many Motto of the Day entries:

"Just do nothing_ it saves money, gas, and utilities."

Of course, it wastes a major resource which is time! Jonathan Chait of "The New Republic" brilliantly illustrated how the Republican Party has done nothing for America since the 1930s, and we couldn't agree more!

Interestingly enough, there is a non-partisan web site called "Do Nothing for Two Minutes" which urges everyone to just simply sit and stare at the screen for 120 seconds!

SIDEBAR: In a column that was reportedly published in "The Washington Post," Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), the most liberal member of the Senated, cited Valero Energy as the nation's sixth worst big corporate freeloader. The company made $68 billion last year, but they still got a $157 million TAX REFUND from the IRS.

I should hope this would raise the eyebrows of even the most conservative Democrat, arguably Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) and/or progresive Republican, whom many believe to be Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), but they are perhaps concerned with other things. The rest of us, however, can pump gas some place else....and, I'm speaking as someone who catered to Valero!

Status Update_ Underdog Versus Palinzilla

I had a surreal last night/this morning, in which I was the late '60s cartoon hero Underdog and I was saving New York City from Palinzilla, a 90-foot fire breathing robot that looked exactly like Sarah Palin.

While I fully sympathize with "Washington Post" columnist Dana Milbank, who has said there should be a moratorium on mentioning Palinzilla's name, I could not resist sharing this story.

In the dream, I gave her one simple whack across the nose and her circuits exploded causing her to malfunction and retreat back to the Hudson Bay. It was ironically sort of like a version of 'David and Goliath.'

Of course, some feminists may argue that my Underdog engaged in domestic violence, but my response would be: "Hey, someone had to save the universe from Palinzilla." Obviously, I do not condone domestic violence in any form and as it is since Palinzilla was a robot, I could argue Underdog was not hitting a woman because androids don't have genders!

SIDEBAR: Everyone in the world seems to be talking about the riots in Egypt today. On the left, "The Nation" has articles titled like "Fire in the Streets of Cairo: Will the Army Hold?" and "Egypt's K-Street Connections."

While on the right, John McCormack has an analysis of President Barack Obama's statement on Egypt in "The Weekly Standard." While I did not have time to actually read the article, I would presume given the magazine's politics, which are actually more restrained than some of their counterparts, that it was critical of Obama.

And, for those of us on the center-left, there is always the ever-reliable "The New Republic" in which Heather Hurlburt has an article about the five things every American should know about the riots which threaten Hosni Mubarak's 30-year reign as the president of Egypt. I was a bit humored and horrified to see that the article actually featured a photograph from a riot in Turkey, which is my late father's country!